Gunman Died of Head Injuries, Coroner Rules : Autopsy: Results also reveal that David Fukuto had not ingested drugs or alcohol before he burst into a conference room and killed two police officers.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office has determined that David Fukuto, the masked gunman who killed two Palos Verdes Estates police officers last month, died from head injuries and asphyxia while being wrestled to the ground by police officers.

The autopsy results showed that Fukuto, 32, had not taken drugs or alcohol prior to the incident, spokesman Scott Carrier said, eliminating a possible explanation for the bizarre and still-unexplained attack during a motivational seminar for Palos Verdes Estates police and city employees.

The coroner’s office, which has classified Fukuto’s death a homicide because it occurred at the hands of others, did not release an autopsy report but issued a news release summarizing its results. Carrier said the autopsy findings were completed Monday.

“There is nothing in writing, but we knew the world was wanting to know the results, and that is why we put out the information,” he said.

Carrier said the official cause of death was traumatic head injuries and asphyxia due to “neck and body compression and blunt force trauma” when officers subdued Fukuto moments after the gunman burst into the 12th-floor conference room where 13 top police and city officials were meeting.

Fukuto, with a pistol in each hand, was confronted by two officers--Capt. Michael Tracy, 50, and Sgt. Vernon Thomas Vanderpool, 57--whom he shot to death before being wrestled to the ground by other officers. The gunman, the son of state District Court of Appeal Justice Morio Fukuto, died a short time later at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance, Carrier said.

Carrier provided no details of the fatal injuries to Fukuto’s head, saying only that the self-employed life insurance salesman apparently had been kicked or beaten. Fukuto did not die from a police chokehold because none of his neck or throat bones were broken or fractured, Carrier said, although it was possible that Fukuto’s bulletproof vest pushed up against his neck and choked his air passage.

“This man was apparently swarmed (by the officers), and they took him down on the floor and were on top of him trying to restrain him,” Carrier said. “It was because of them doing this that we came to the finding of compression to the neck and body.”

District attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said the coroner’s finding that Fukuto’s death was a homicide means that he “was killed by other persons and did not die from natural causes.” But Gibbons said the autopsy results represent only one facet of the district attorney’s investigation.

“Once we have all of the elements in, we will sit down and evaluate them and make our decision on how to proceed,” Gibbons said.

Torrance Police Sgt. Dave Smith said investigators have begun forwarding information to the district attorney’s office, which is expected to make a finding within a week.

For the first time since the attack, Fukuto’s parents issued a public statement about the incident, Smith said. “Judge Fukuto spoke with our investigators today and told them that it is the family’s intent not to pursue any investigation or make any accusation of wrongdoing against the Palos Verdes Estates Police Department involving the death of their son,” Smith said.